Matt Cardona Discusses Wanting Another WrestleMania Moment In WWE

Since being released from WWE in 2020, Matt Cardona has reinvented himself as the "Indie God," and asserts that he now makes more money working on his own terms than he ever did for his former employer. But that hasn't stopped the man formerly known as Zack Ryder from thirsting for another day on the big stage, and he admitted to such on "Busted Open Radio."

"Once I got released, my goal wasn't, 'Oh, what can I do to get back to WWE?' or 'What can I do to get AEW to notice me?'" Cardona said. "It wasn't to prove people wrong, it was my goal to prove myself right ... But I'd be lying if I said I wanted to wrestle in high school gyms the rest of my career. No way. When I wrestled Edge, Adam Copeland, on AEW [Collision] a couple months ago — to be in a real arena and have them go crazy when I came out, I go, 'Oh my god. I miss this.' Like, you can't get this feeling ... I want to have another WrestleMania moment. I want to be in Madison Square Garden, or be at All In at Wembley Stadium. I would love to do stuff like that."

The twice-named "Indie Wrestler of the Year" by Pro Wrestling Illustrated suffered a setback recently when he tore a pectoral muscle, which, surprisingly, Cardona sees a silver lining in. "I feel like this injury — not like I needed to get injured — but I feel like maybe I did to kind of be like, 'Okay ... we're working our a** off, but maybe we need to work a little harder. Maybe we can't be satisfied with being the 'Indie God.' Maybe we need to get to one of these big companies." Cardona mentioned he'd still be making indie appearances while rehabbing his injury.